Atheists, if God existed, would it be reasonable to expect God to...

[Trailblazer]

There's another way of looking at it, though.
God's omnipotence means he can do whatever he wants, however he wants.
Why, then, choose fallible humans to carry his message? Is it not something that ever crosses your mind?

The Messengers of God are Infallible, just as God is Infallible..

Messengers of God, what Baha’is normally refer to as Manifestations of God, possess two stations: one is the physical station pertaining to the world of matter, and the others is the spiritual station, born of the substance of God. In other words, one station is that of a human being, and one, of the Divine Reality. It is because they possess both a human and a divine station that they can act as *mediators* between God and man.

Every Manifestation of God is a mirror of God, reflecting God’s Self, God’s Beauty, God’s Might and Glory. All other human beings are to be regarded as mirrors capable of reflecting the glory of these Manifestations Who are themselves the Primary Mirrors of the Divine Being,

The Manifestations of God are another order of creation above an ordinary man. They possess a universal divine mind that is different than ours and that is why God only speaks to them directly and through Them God communicates to humanity.

Of course these are all beliefs and can never be proven, except to ourselves.

 

[HonestJoe]

So what he is arguing for is an omnipotent god who would do exactly what he thinks the god should do, communicate a message directly to everyone on earth.

No, he’s arguing against the existence of such a god. He is proposing a specific god, presumably based on what he understands some theists believe. The god has been defined as wanting everyone to understand and believe whatever than god message is. That is the hypothesis. He is then comparing that hypothesis with the evidence we have, that there are lots of different messengers presenting different ideas that don’t convince everyone. From that he reaches a conclusion that the evidence doesn’t fit the hypothesis and therefore that specifically proposed god doesn’t exist.

Logically speaking, if there is an all-powerful and all-knowing god, He has made the universe exactly how He wanted it to be. That God did not communicate directly to everyone so there has to be a reason why He didn’t. the logical thing to do is try to figure out why God did not communicate directly to everyone, but when I say that to this atheist poster he just says it is an excuse, over and over and over again. How could an omnipotent/omniscient/infallible God ever need to make any excuses to humans? This is completely illogical.

If everything is how a perfect god wants it to be and there is something we don’t understand, that god must not want us to understand. If god wanted us to understand, we would understand. That’s how omnipotence would work.

It’s the fundamental contradiction between the idea of gods being so powerful and beyond us that we couldn’t being to understand them while at the same time anthropomorphising them, applying human feeling, desires and, significantly, flaws, to justify religious ideas and rules. We are clearly imperfect. If there is a god, it is either perfect and therefore entirely beyond our understanding or it is imperfect too. You can’t logically say that god is perfect but then go on to claim to know and understand anything about them.

 

[blü 2]

Maybe you mean how do we know that God is omniscient. If God is omniscient, God knows what He is. God is not like a human who does not know everything about himself because he lacks self-awareness. God by His nature is All-Knowing.

Nah ─ you only know that because his agent said so. And as I pointed out, without an objective test, God doesn't know whether he's omniscient or not so he can't instruct his agent to say he is.

So what's the test?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That is true. But they still believe in God without getting direct communication form God.

This isn't what we were talking about. We were talking about the people who rely on a messenger as the reason for their belief in God.

Countless Christians believe that they also get direct communication from God, so their faith doesn't rely on any prophets/messengers.

And it's a tenet of (at least most branches of) Islam that the entire universe is testament to God's existence and magnificence, so they aren't relying on prophets/messengers for their belief in God either.

And then in every religion, we find adherents who practice the religion because of things like family and social pressure, so these people weren't convinced by messengers either.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

I can easily explain why that outcome exists. It is because of religious traditions people hold that do not have messengers as part of their belief systems. They are attached to these beliefs and they have free will so they choose not to relinquish their beliefs. Then there are the nonbelievers who just do not like the idea of messengers for no good reasons they can give me.

I find it funny that you didn't answer the question.

"Free will" isn't an explanation. The fact that someone has the ability to choose between a number of options isn't - can't be - the reason why they chose one option over all the others.

And setting aside your characterization of non-believers - I've personally given you plenty of good reasons not to accept purported messengers but you just haven't listened - you basically told me that you don't know why they reject your "messengers."

It is as simple as that everyone is different. Everyone has a different childhood upbringing, different adult life experiences, different education and all that lead to a different way of thinking about God and religion and Messengers.

Is "a different way of thinking about God and religion and Messengers" just your way of re-phrasing what I said earlier: that some set their bar for acceptance higher than others?

It clears the bar for most people and the other people believe in God without a Messenger so they do not need a religion that has a Messenger. It does not clear the bar for atheists because they have decided they need God to do something else.

No; atheists generally don't need God at all. That's part of being an atheist.

They call the Word of God hearsay just because they do not get a direct message from God, as if the Almighty God owes them a direct message. It would be funny if it was not so sad.

You're misrepresenting the position.

Dismissing messages from "messengers" as unreliable hearsay is an accurate description of the system you're describing. This doesn't mean, though, that the atheist is arguing that he's entitled to proper evidence.

However, it does mean that we can infer intent on the part of your hypothetical God based on your claims of his actions. If your God only communicates with humanity by hearsay, then we can infer that this hypothetical God is only interested in having his message be accepted by people who can be convinced by hearsay alone.

... IOW, gullible people.

I do think so because that is what the statistics demonstrate. There are some believers who just believe in God with no message from God, but they have no way of knowing anything about God or what God expects of them, so I consider this rather pointless.

Wait - so you believe that other religions' "messages" that are incompatible with the Baha'i faith also came from God? Why are you a Baha'i, then?

I'm wondering if maybe you misread my question or didn't see its full implications.

And there is a reason why. I just posted it to my atheist friend on my forum yesterday.

You are right, you have to trust the God and the man claiming to be the Messenger, and it is possible that there can be errors in interpreting the messages even if it is written down clearly, but there is no reason to think that direct communication to everyone would work better and it is fraught with problems.

So you acknowledge the problems with indirect communication. How do you solve them?

While I do think that indirect communication has more problems than direct communication, I think it's entirely possible that direct communication also has insurmountable problems as well, so don't assume that all you'd need to do to establish that indirect communication is a good reason to believe in God is to demonstrate that it's better than direct communication.

Right out the door, not everyone could ever understand what Baha'u'llah wrote let alone write it down, in excess of 15,000 tablets.

Communication that isn't understood by the intended receiver is poor communication.

Sure, God would communicate a message to everyone saying “I am God and I exist” but what good would that do? How would everyone even know it was God and not their imagination, a psychotic break?

I have no idea. That's the point I've been trying to get at: what possible message could a "Messenger" relay from God that would demonstrate that God exists? I'm not sure such a message couldc exist, but you're arguing that it does.

Obviously, if God exists, God communicated via Messengers for a good reason, because it was the best way to communicate, as an omniscient God has to know the best way.

Back up a step. You haven't established that God did use messengers (or that God exists at all, though we seem to be assuming this for argument's sake in this thread). Before musing about why God might have done something, first establish that he did it at all.

I do not mis-speak on his behalf. Like I said you can go and read what he says on my forum and then you will know exactly what he says. Otherwise it is unfair to accuse me of misrepresenting him.

You misrepresented me twice in the post I'm replying to. I just don't trust you to represent an atheist position faithfully.

... which isn't to say that I think you're being dishonest. It just seems like you have real trouble relating to non-theistic mindsets.

I posted what he said in red and then I gave my opinion. Obviously that was my opinion. I have a right to my opinion. If he wants to argue against my opinion he can sign up and post here.

I think that part of the issue is that it isn't always clear:

- what you're directly quoting from this mystery atheist,
- what things you're paraphrasing, i.e. what you're not directly quoting, but you sincerely think is a fair rephrasing of his views, and
- editorializing and your opinions about his views.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I admire both the patience of yourself and your online associate in continuing to speak with each other.

I agree with your concerns about the assumption God wanting the maximum number of people to believe in him. If that were the primary concern then it makes sense God would make Himself known in a manner that was unmistakably clear to everyone. There would be few who would disagree the sun exists. It is unmistakably manifest for all.

Regardless of which people a god might want to reach, it stands to reason that this god would choose an approach that will be successful with those people. Even if God wanted to reach only one person, we would expect that he would choose a communication method that would be effective at actually reaching that person.

If you want to argue that God only wants to reach certain people, that's fine; just tell us who he's trying to reach and we can consider whether he's effectiveat achieving this goal.

The alternative is for us to infer who he's trying to reach based on the purported method and who it tends to reach. If the method is hearsay via messengers, then we can infer that the group God is trying to reach is "people who can be convinced by hearsay."

... but can we square this up with the rest of the belief system? Who God is trying to reach has theological implications; does the religion in question actually incorporate these implications? If not, then I'm going to lean toward the conclusion that what's actually going on is excuse-making for a high failure rate of God's "chosen" method of communicating with people.

There is a phrase from a Baha’i prayer where Bahá’u’lláh speaks of God as being the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden. It would be fair to claim God makes Himself known to all who genuinely seek Him and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to embrace that truth.

IMO, if you have to be predisposed to see something in order to see it, then this is a big red flag that what we're talking about is pareidolia and probably not real.

There's a reason why motivated reasoning is seen as distinct from rational reasoning.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Of course he is making an unfounded assumption that God is trying to achieve the result of the maximum number of people getting and believing His message, although there is no way he can know that is what God is trying to achieve.

I agree that this is a poor assumption. Even if a God exists, there is very little contemporary reason to believe, nor contemporary evidence to suggest, that it actually cares about human beings. Literally the only thing we have that informs us that "God cares" are some passages in The Bible, and what other believers believe or claim to have felt. In other words... just a bunch of words. There is nothing else to go on. Nothing. The world itself is fairly difficult for a human being to navigate, survival is tough and we've had to discover and implement our own ways of tempering the wild to suit our needs, thousands of people are harmed every single day without any intervention - I just don't see it.

His premise is that since imaginary gods use messengers a real God would never use a Messenger. What he is really saying is that because there are false messengers (men who claim to speak for God), God would never send a Messenger who speaks for God. Of course this is patently illogical. That is like saying that just because there is a junkyard with junky cars that do not run there cannot be a new car lot down the street with cars that run nicely.

I agree that your friend cannot merely state that "imaginary gods use messengers." However, I do think he's onto something in his assessment. With all the "messengers" there have been, and all of the confusion that differing messages and religions has caused, one would think that anyone with even a modicum of intelligence and ability to do otherwise, would look at the logistics of using messengers to get their message across and find it incredibly inefficient and mostly botched by now - to the point that they wouldn't want to use it because it has been shown to be a really, really poor and unconvincing method of delivering "the message."

Your car analogy is, I feel, framed up incorrectly. You instead would be looking at the case where a person is looking for a method of travel, and has witnessed those around him attempting to use cars to do so. But in each of the cases he has witnessed the cars break down after a time, not going as far as anyone wants them to, and ultimately leaving people unable to make their entire trip. And THIS is the scenario within which this person needs to decide whether or not to utilize a car to make their own trip. AKA: To deliver their own message.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

Playing devil's advocate (since I neither know or care if there is a god at all, let alone what it may want from me), I agree the above is a bad argument relying on the notion god wants followers. However, the argument shifts drastically if the argument instead becomes:
A. God is omnibenevolent
B. God wants to do everything in its power to keep its creation from [x eternal danmnation].

So if God sits idly by and does not communicate with creation except through vague, unverifiable and fallible human written and human interpreted ancient texts, it's not doing everything within its power to stop them from experiencing [x eternal damnation]. Which is not very benevolent.

What immediately is missing is whether it is actually good to mess with free will. If God announced himself, people would either have to have the chance to go into denial and say "holographic projections" or we would be talking about coercion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What immediately is missing is whether it is actually good to mess with free will. If God announced himself, people would either have to have the chance to go into denial and say "holographic projections" or we would be talking about coercion.

What does any of this have to do with free will?

"Obvious choice" <> "coerced choice."

 

[QuestioningMind]

I agree that if God wanted to convey a clear and unambiguous message to everyone, choosing to send a 'messenger' would be a poor method to use, because not everyone would consider the message clear and unambiguous so only a few people would get the message, at least in the beginning.

However, there is no reason to assume that God wants to convey a clear and unambiguous message to everyone; otherwise God would have chosen some other method.

There is no need to determine which ones are false in order to determine which one is true. I do not have to look at all the houses in town before I decide which house to buy. I just look at ones that seem like the ones I might want because they have the features I am looking for.

Once they narrowed it down, they would not have to guess if they looked at the evidence the Messengers provided to prove their claims. It would be a bit more difficult to determine which one was the true Messenger unless you knew what to look for, but there are key features they all have in common.

I agree that if God wanted to convey a clear and unambiguous message to everyone, choosing to send a 'messenger' would be a poor method to use, because not everyone would consider the message clear and unambiguous so only a few people would get the message, at least in the beginning.

However, there is no reason to assume that God wants to convey a clear and unambiguous message to everyone; otherwise God would have chosen some other method.

No one claimed that God wanted EVERYONE to understand the messenger, just that IF God only wants a select few to understand the the TRULY clear and unambiguous method would be to contact these individuals Himself. By sending a 'messenger' along with all of the FALSE messengers, it opens the door for confusion.

There is no need to determine which ones are false in order to determine which one is true. I do not have to look at all the houses in town before I decide which house to buy. I just look at ones that seem like the ones I might want because they have the features I am looking for.

Once they narrowed it down, they would not have to guess if they looked at the evidence the Messengers provided to prove their claims. It would be a bit more difficult to determine which one was the true Messenger unless you knew what to look for, but there are key features they all have in common

LOL Okay... so you're not talking about finding the TRUE messenger... it's all about finding the messenger that you AGREE with. Since it's all about finding the message that you 'want', YOUR 'true messenger' could very well be a 'false messenger' for ME. After all the perfect house for ME, might be far from the perfect house for YOU. Thus, it's clear 'true' and 'false' are all in the eye of the beholder. There is no TRUE god... only what individuals have made up for what they IMAGINE a TRUE god would be.

Let's be honest and simply admit there there's no verifiable evidence that ANY god or gods exist.

 

[Hawkins]

A deity that doesn't do whatever is necessary to save people from eternal torture is evil. Now, if you can accept an evil deity, then nothing else need be said. But if you desire a *good* deity, then only having Messengers is clearly not enough since they don't maximize goodness.

In contrary, a deity allows evil to grow in an eternal heaven is evil. Removing whoever deemed evil in that eternity is a responsibility.

 

[LuisDantas]

The reason I am posting this is because I have been posting to an atheist on some other forums for over five years and he insists that if god existed god would communicate directly to every single person in the world rather than using messengers.

I think that I see where he is coming from.

A God that values belief has no reason (and in truth no right) to make games out of whether it exists.

Of course, it is not a given that a god would care whether people believed in its existence.

He should really come here and post his own question but he won’t come here so I am posting EXACTLY what he wants me to post this time, since he said that the questions on my other thread were not what he would have asked.

I believe him.

Here it is, a direct quote from him, turned into a question for you:

“Is there every reason to believe that if God existed, and wanted to achieve the result of the maximum number of people getting and believing any message he wanted them to get and believe, that he would use the same method used by all imaginary gods (messengers) which achieves results worse than reason demands would be achieved by using what only a real god could use: direct communication?”

A couple of observations, if you will allow me:

1) There is a misunderstanding here. "Messengers" are hardly an universal feature of deities.

2) And I must assume that he means to ask whether there is _any_ reason to believe, not whether there is _every_ reason.

That clarified, he is entirely correct. It makes no sense that a God would hold such contradictory expectations.

Of course he is making an unfounded assumption that God is trying to achieve the result of the maximum number of people getting and believing His message, although there is no way he can know that is what God is trying to achieve.

He is making an assumption or two, but those are implied by the Abrahamic conception of deity (or at least that from mainstream Christians, Muslims and Bahais). They would not necessarily apply to most non-Abrahamic deities, nor to the Judaic conception of deity.

A "true' God of Abraham can care about how many people believe in its existence, or it can rely on human messengers. It can't really reconcile the two traits if it is a true God with presumed omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence.

His premise is that since imaginary gods use messengers a real God would never use a Messenger. What he is really saying is that because there are false messengers (men who claim to speak for God), God would never send a Messenger who speaks for God. Of course this is patently illogical. That is like saying that just because there is a junkyard with junky cars that do not run there cannot be a new car lot down the street with cars that run nicely.

He is essentially correct. If Abraham's, Muhammad's or Bahahullah's God existed, it would not use human messengers and written scriptures as its main forms of communication. Not without deviating firmly from the very depiction given from its supposed messengers, which brings serious doubt to the validity of having said messengers to begin with.

That would be a curious God, at once Ominipotent and utterly incompetent.

 

[Dawnofhope]

Regardless of which people a god might want to reach, it stands to reason that this god would choose an approach that will be successful with those people. Even if God wanted to reach only one person, we would expect that he would choose a communication method that would be effective at actually reaching that person.

The reality is the vast majority of the world’s population at theists.

These are all the world's major religions in one map

If we wanted to go with the God of Abraham as represented by those who follow Abrahamic Faiths the figures are about 55%. Obviously many peoples of non-Abrahamic persuasion believe in a supreme being too.

A significant minority identity with no religion. Its hard to quantify the numbers of atheists let alone convinced atheists. Let’s say 5-10% and perhaps higher if we include weak atheists and agnostics. No doubt the figures are higher for some countries such as in Western Europe.

Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia

The point is we can quantify and classify people according to belief. What you and I believe can be evaluated. Having facts as opposed to opinions seems like a useful starting point because if we can’t agree on quantitative data, we’re unlikely to agree on much else.

Perhaps the existence of God or gods is complete myth and fabrication but most people don’t believe that. Is religion as total mythology a plausible or rational narrative to explain objective phenomenon? Many atheists would recognise that’s too hardline. The existence of key historic religious figures such as Christ, Muhammad and Buddha have some evidence base along with the Teachings they brought.

The next step involves a study of world history and consider the influence of religion in shaping the development of civilisation. The role of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism has been profound whether positive or negative. For example would you deny Christianity’s role in shaping Western Civilisation?

So your comments about the success of God communicating with people appear to ignore what we know about world history, comparative religion and for me personally, my experience of life. Perhaps we simply agree to disagree.

If you want to argue that God only wants to reach certain people, that's fine; just tell us who he's trying to reach and we can consider whether he's effectiveat achieving this goal.

According to the sacred texts I’m familiar with God is available to anyone who sincerely seeks Him. That doesn’t necessarily mean if you turn your back on God He will turn His back on you. So God may reveal Himself to one who isn’t seeking at all. The effectiveness of God’s efforts to communicate to humanity is based on the evidence presented above.

The alternative is for us to infer who he's trying to reach based on the purported method and who it tends to reach. If the method is hearsay via messengers, then we can infer that the group God is trying to reach is "people who can be convinced by hearsay."

If you want to reduce the Bible, Quran, Buddhist canon and Vedas to hearsay you are simply telling me you have made up your mind and not prepared to respectfully consider anything I have to say. If the texts are mere hearsay to be dismissed with a word, and that approach works best for you, then I wish you well.

... but can we square this up with the rest of the belief system? Who God is trying to reach has theological implications; does the religion in question actually incorporate these implications? If not, then I'm going to lean toward the conclusion that what's actually going on is excuse-making for a high failure rate of God's "chosen" method of communicating with people.

IMO, if you have to be predisposed to see something in order to see it, then this is a big red flag that what we're talking about is pareidolia and probably not real.

There's a reason why motivated reasoning is seen as distinct from rational reasoning.

Perhaps a better word than predisposed is being open minded. For me being open minded is a positive quality.

 

[Trailblazer]

No, he’s arguing against the existence of such a god. He is proposing a specific god, presumably based on what he understands some theists believe. The god has been defined as wanting everyone to understand and believe whatever than god message is. That is the hypothesis.

The problem is that I have told him one hundred million times that is not what I believe. My God does not want everyone to understand and believe the message that is sent through the Messenger. So that is this atheist’s hypothesis, not mine.

He is then comparing that hypothesis with the evidence we have, that there are lots of different messengers presenting different ideas that don’t convince everyone. From that he reaches a conclusion that the evidence doesn’t fit the hypothesis and therefore that specifically proposed god doesn’t exist.

It is his hypothesis that if a god existed, that god would want to reach everyone and convince everyone that he exists and that the maximum number of people would believe in the Messenger God sends. But that is not what I believe God wants or what God expects. Moreover, nobody can ever know what God wants or expects unless it is written in scriptures. I believe I know the Will of God regarding how we are to search for and recognize his Messenger, but not what God wants or what God expects.

If everything is how a perfect god wants it to be and there is something we don’t understand, that god must not want us to understand. If god wanted us to understand, we would understand. That’s how omnipotence would work.

I fully agree. And if we do not understand and then instead of admitting we do not understand we fill in the blanks we are speaking for God.

I think there are things that God wants us to understand and those have been revealed through Messengers. But there are things that God does not reveal, so we can assume that we either do not need to know those things or they are beyond our ability to understand.

It’s the fundamental contradiction between the idea of gods being so powerful and beyond us that we couldn’t being to understand them while at the same time anthropomorphising them, applying human feeling, desires and, significantly, flaws, to justify religious ideas and rules. We are clearly imperfect. If there is a god, it is either perfect and therefore entirely beyond our understanding or it is imperfect too. You can’t logically say that god is perfect but then go on to claim to know and understand anything about them.

I do not claim to know anything about the intrinsic nature of God. I believe that we can only know some Attributes of God and the Will of God through what Messengers reveal. The intrinsic nature of God, what I normally refer to as the Essence of God, is entirely beyond human understanding.

It is ludicrous to say “God wants” because God is immeasurably exalted above all created things.

“Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcendeth His creatures. This is the true meaning of Divine unity. He Who is the Eternal Truth is the one Power Who exerciseth undisputed sovereignty over the world of being, Whose image is reflected in the mirror of the entire creation. All existence is dependent upon Him, and from Him is derived the source of the sustenance of all things. This is what is meant by Divine unity; this is its fundamental principle.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 167

How could such a God want anything from humans, such as wanting the maximum number of people to believe He exists? God does not need anyone to believe that He exists because God is fully self-sufficient and fully self-subsisting above having needs. Needs are what humans have, God has no needs.

It is rather unfortunate that the Bible has led people to believe things about God that caused them to anthropomorphize God, but that is what happened because of all the stories in the Bible that are attributed to God, what God did and thought, as if God was a human. Imo, these stories were intended to be interpreted figuratively, not literally. They were meant to convey eternal spiritual truths, not actual occurrences.

 

[MonkeyFire]

Prophets have the power to aide God.

 

[Trailblazer]

Nah ─ you only know that because his agent said so. And as I pointed out, without an objective test, God doesn't know whether he's omniscient or not so he can't instruct his agent to say he is.

So what's the test?

If God is omniscient God does not need a test to prove that because God knows everything.

 

[blü 2]

If God is omniscient God does not need a test to prove that because God knows everything.

Well, it's up to him to get his agents to tell us the objective test for omniscience that he satisfies.

Until then, we only have his agents' word for it. That's not enough to refute reasonable Rumsfeldian doubts ─ God thinks he knows everything because he doesn't know what he doesn't know. And it's his claim so it's up to him to demonstrate otherwise.

Of course if he is omniscient, he'll know what the test is.

And also know how to tell us what it is.

Since he hasn't done that, I'm inclined to imply that his silence on the point is an admission of his ignorance.

 

[Trailblazer]

This isn't what we were talking about. We were talking about the people who rely on a messenger as the reason for their belief in God.

Countless Christians believe that they also get direct communication from God, so their faith doesn't rely on any prophets/messengers.

It relies upon Jesus who was a Messenger of God because without Jesus they would not have gotten the Holy Spirit which is why *they believe* that they get direct communication from God.

And it's a tenet of (at least most branches of) Islam that the entire universe is testament to God's existence and magnificence, so they aren't relying on prophets/messengers for their belief in God either.

That’s true, but they got these beliefs from Muhammad, a Messenger of God.

And then in every religion, we find adherents who practice the religion because of things like family and social pressure, so these people weren't convinced by messengers either.
Do you understand what I'm saying?

I think you are saying that not all religious people in God believe just because of a Messenger, or even because of a Messenger. I agree.

I find it funny that you didn't answer the question.

I did not see a question…..

9-10ths_Penguin said: And in any case, however large the relative size of people who believe in your "messengers" versus people who don't, we have a difference in outcome that needs to be explained.

But I see I made a mistake in my answer: The differences in outcomes are because of certain religious traditions people hold who do not have Messengers as part of their belief systems. Then there are the nonbelievers who do not like the idea of Messengers so they do not believe in Messengers.

"Free will" isn't an explanation. The fact that someone has the ability to choose between a number of options isn't - can't be - the reason why they chose one option over all the others.

They have the ability to choose because of free will but most people choose to stay with the belief system they were raided in.

And setting aside your characterization of non-believers - I've personally given you plenty of good reasons not to accept purported messengers but you just haven't listened - you basically told me that you don't know why they reject your "messengers."

If your reason is because you cannot trust that they are telling the truth and you cannot prove they actually got messages from God there is nothing that can be done about that. Such a thing cannot be proven. People either recognize them as Messengers or not.

Is "a different way of thinking about God and religion and Messengers" just your way of re-phrasing what I said earlier: that some set their bar for acceptance higher than others?

I refuse to play the higher and lower game because it is just an indirect way of saying that believers have lower standards. Why can’t you just accept that we are all different in how we view the same evidence; believers see things atheists don’t see but I do not say that is because atheists are lower. I think that they are unrealistic though because there can never be the kind of evidence for any religion that there is for anything in the material world that can be proven by scientific means.

No; atheists generally don't need God at all. That's part of being an atheist.

Then I have to wonder why certain atheists talk so much about what god could/should/would do. I do not talk about what pink unicorns could/should/would do.

You're misrepresenting the position.

No, not at all. That is the exact position. If God expects me to believe in Him God has to communicate with me directly. Here is a direct quote from an atheist on my forum posted today:

“I do NOT know what the "best way" would be for a God to communicate to a human being, nor do I even care to SUGGEST any specific way to accomplish it.....OTHER than for it to be a VALID contact, it is imperative that such a communication come DIRECTLY FROM GOD and NOT by any other source OTHER than from God.”

Do you even see the contradictions in that statement?

Dismissing messages from "messengers" as unreliable hearsay is an accurate description of the system you're describing. This doesn't mean, though, that the atheist is arguing that he's entitled to proper evidence.

However, it does mean that we can infer intent on the part of your hypothetical God based on your claims of his actions. If your God only communicates with humanity by hearsay, then we can infer that this hypothetical God is only interested in having his message be accepted by people who can be convinced by hearsay alone.

... IOW, gullible people.

I would appreciate it if you would not use the word hearsay. That implies that anything that does not come directly from God to a person is hearsay. Hearsay does not apply to what religious people consider the Word of God.

And now you are implying that people who believe in Messengers of God are gullible.

So I guess if you think God should speak to you directly so you won’t have to get communication through a Messenger? What other WAY would there be?

Wait - so you believe that other religions' "messages" that are incompatible with the Baha'i faith also came from God? Why are you a Baha'i, then?

That is not what I said. I said some people have NO religion but they believe God exists.

So you acknowledge the problems with indirect communication. How do you solve them?

So big deal if there are some problems. Nothing in this material world is perfect. There are problems everywhere. We just do the best we can to understand the messages and we understand the gist of them which is what matters.

I know how you don’t solve them. You don’t solve them with direct communication because God does not communicate directly to anyone except Messengers, and even then through the Holy Spirit.

While I do think that indirect communication has more problems than direct communication, I think it's entirely possible that direct communication also has insurmountable problems as well, so don't assume that all you'd need to do to establish that indirect communication is a good reason to believe in God is to demonstrate that it's better than direct communication.

From a purely logical point of view whatever communication an omniscient God chooses to use would have to be the best way to communicate. We already know that God does not communicate directly to everyone so that cannot be the best way. We have some evidence that God communicates through messengers even though we have no proof. So where does that leave us? Since there is no evidence that God has ever communicated in any way other than Messengers, there are only two other logical possibilities: (1) God exists and does not communicate, or (2) God does not exist.

Communication that isn't understood by the intended receiver is poor communication.

It was understood by the intended receiver, Baha’u’llah.

I have no idea. That's the point I've been trying to get at: what possible message could a "Messenger" relay from God that would demonstrate that God exists? I'm not sure such a message could exist, but you're arguing that it does.

I *believe* that the messages coming through the Messengers demonstrate that God exists. I am not arguing it because I cannot prove it.

Back up a step. You haven't established that God did use messengers (or that God exists at all, though we seem to be assuming this for argument's sake in this thread). Before musing about why God might have done something, first establish that he did it at all.

No, I do not have to establish that because it cannot be established, and that is why it is a belief and not a fact.

You misrepresented me twice in the post I'm replying to. I just don't trust you to represent an atheist position faithfully.

I might misunderstand you, but that is not the same thing as misrepresenting you. If you want to see for yourself you are welcome to come to my forum. However, what I posted in the OP in read is exactly what he said, turned into a question.

... which isn't to say that I think you're being dishonest. It just seems like you have real trouble relating to non-theistic mindsets.

All I have been doing for the last six years is listen to atheists, so I know all their arguments. I can understand but that does not mean I agree with them. They think the idea of God using Messengers is ridiculous. Frankly, I think many (but not all) of their arguments are illogical and ridiculous. However, the reason for such is that they don’t know anything about god. Then when I explain what I know about God they reject my explanations because they say I cannot know. There is nowhere to go with that except in circles.

I think that part of the issue is that it isn't always clear:

- what you're directly quoting from this mystery atheist,
- what things you're paraphrasing, i.e. what you're not directly quoting, but you sincerely think is a fair rephrasing of his views, and
- editorializing and your opinions about his views.

Like I said, go and read on my forum for yourself if you want to know exactly what he said. I quoted him directly from his post and I even posted the link to the post where he said it.
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As for my opinions of his views, it is clear what my opinions were.

 

[Trailblazer]

I think that I see where he is coming from.
A God that values belief has no reason (and in truth no right) to make games out of whether it exists.

There are no games, just the evidence God chooses to provide.

Of course, it is not a given that a god would care whether people believed in its existence.

You said it. God needs nobody's belief.
Whether God cares or not nobody can know.

 

[LuisDantas]

There are no games, just the evidence God chooses to provide.

In that case, atheism must be acknowledged as valid and necessary, doesn't it?

You said it. God needs nobody's belief.
Whether God cares of not nobody can know.

Indeed.

Unfortunately, that means that the Abrahamic revelations have no value.

 

[Trailblazer]

In that case, atheism must be acknowledged as valid and necessary, doesn't it?

Yes, at least for now.

Unfortunately, that means that the Abrahamic revelations have no value.

They have value for humans, not for God.